Legislature Set to Override Freedom of Information Restriction Veto

Pam Althoff

Former McHenry Mayor Pam Althoff is a sponsor of the bill.

Governments like to keep secrets.

It’s an attribute ingrained in the beast.

Even outsiders elected to office vowing transparency get pushed in the direction of keeping information from the public.

The local governments have gotten together and convinced our state legislators, many of whom are former local officials, to make it harder to get public records.

House Bill 3796 would “give government agencies more time to respond to comprehensive FOIA requests from everyday citizens, and — this is the deal breaker — charge them up to $100 per request,” as the Better Government Association’s Andy Shaw puts it.

Are you or any of your friends willing to pay $100 for information that should be public for the asking?

The bill was pushed through the General Assembly in just six days.

Hard to say that much consideration occurred in that period of time.

Karen McConnaughay

Former Kane County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay voted in favor of the bill.

All of the State Representatives representing part of McHenry County, except retiring Tim Schmitz, voted against the bill.

But, State Senators Pam Althoff and Karen McConnaughay cast  “Yes” votes.

Althoff is even a sponsor of the bill.

Dan Duffy was not recorded as voting.

Governor Pat Quinn, harking back to his days as a reformer, vetoed the bill.

You can find the roll calls here

The bill’s original sponsor was House Speaker Mike Madeigan.

Here is the original title of the bills:

Synopsis As Introduced

Amends the Regulatory Sunset Act. Makes a technical change in a Section concerning the short title.

You can read the bill here.


Comments

Legislature Set to Override Freedom of Information Restriction Veto — 16 Comments

  1. Another really terrible idea.

    How do they keep coming up with this secrecy stuff?

    Does no one at all remember why we have government or who they are supposed to represent?

    Digusting!

  2. Thank you Cal for letting the public know about the contents of this bill and its potential impact on regular citizens.

    Please contact your state rep TODAY and voice your opposition to an override on HB3796.

    The state legislature will be acting on this bill this week!

  3. I would be very interested to find out from Sen. Althoff why she sponsored the bill.

    Perhaps you could ask her, Cal.

  4. As with anything there can be abuses.

    Whatever abuses occurred by citizens requesting too much information or too often with the current law, a lot can be done other than charging the average citizen $100 in certain situations.

    The overall pendulum is already in the favor of government at the expense of citizens regarding FOIA.

    The FOIA law is toothless, no meaningful enforcement mechanism for individuals or the government body for violating FOIA laws.

    Way to many government bodies way to often play games when responding to FOIA.

    Games such as they know what you want, but don’t give you what you want, because you didn’t ask for it in a certain exact precise fashion.

    Games such as I’ll talk to you about the information, but you can’t have it, because we can’t product a report.

    Games such as I only have to provide documents, not answer your questions.

    And the list goes on and on and on.

    The fact that Andy Shaw is against the bill is a major red flag.

    The Better Government Association is very experienced with FOIA.

    BGA fields many requests from citizens about FOIA denials, hold FOIA workshops, and have information on their website about FOIA.

    Citizens Advocacy Center in Elmhurst is another resource.

    Veto the bill.

    By the way, how about school districts being required to post salary and benefit information on their websites for all teachers administrators; and IMRF employees earning over $75k annual compensation?

    Many school districts ignore those laws.

    No consequence.

    And many school districts delete prior year postings from their website, if they even have the current year posting.

    It’s a complete joke.

    Why is that important.

    Beyond the obvious that the public should know what they are paying for, salary and benefit hikes are the inputs to hiking pensions.

    Pensions is the biggest problem in the state.

    Instead of charging citizens already paying taxes $100 per request, how about if someone in the government is held accountable and gets fired for not posting required salary and benefit information.

  5. HB 3796
    98th General Assembly

    House Sponsors
    Barbara Flynn Currie
    Ed Sullivan, Jr.
    Robert Rita

    Senate Sponsors
    Michael E. Hastings
    Pamela J. Althoff
    Pat McGuire
    Bill Cunningham)

    Description
    Amends the Freedom of Information Act.
    Defines “voluminous request”.
    Provides that a public body shall comply with specified notice requirements and deadlines in responding to a voluminous request.
    Provides that when a requester makes a voluminous request, the public body may charge specified fees for electronic data.
    Provides that, with specified exceptions, a public body is not required to copy and make available for public inspection a public record that is published on the public body’s website.
    Makes corresponding changes.
    Effective immediately.

  6. If Obama’s $400 K a year advisor Gruber says,

    “the American people are too stupid to understand”.

    Who’s to blame Althoff, for wanting to shield us from too much information overload.

    It’s for our own good, right Althoff?

  7. The state plausible reason for this bill is it’s targeted to voluminous requests.

    What exactly is a voluminous request?

    How voluminous is a voluminous request?

    What are some of the additional real reasons for this bill?

    The Illinois General Assembly might pass around 500 new laws per year.

    If 500 laws are passed, there is a vote on even more bills.

    How well does each State Rep and State Senator understand each bill on which they vote?

    How does the average citizen even to begin to get their arms around each bill that is voted upon and passed?

    Below are the proposed additions in HB 3796 to the current FOIA law.
    When an addition occurred to an existing sentence, the entire existing sentence and addition is included.

    “Voluminous request” means a request that:

    (i) includes categories of records or a combination of individual requests that total requests for more than 5 different categories of records in a period of 20 business days; or

    (ii) requires the compilation of more than 500 letter or legal-sized pages of public records unless a single requested record exceeds 500 pages.

    “Single requested record” may include, but is not limited to, one report, form, e-mail, letter, memorandum, book, map, microfilm, tape, or recording.

    “Voluminous request” does not include a request made by news media and non-profit, scientific, or academic organizations if the principal purpose of the request is:

    (1) to access and disseminate information concerning news and current or passing events;

    (2) for articles of opinion or features of interest to the public; or

    (3) for the purpose of academic, scientific, or public research or education.

    For the purposes of this subsection (h), “request” means a written document, or oral request, if the public body chooses to honor oral requests, that is submitted to a public body via personal delivery, mail, telefax, electronic mail, or other means available to the public body and that identifies the
    particular public record or records the requester seeks.

    One request may identify multiple individual records to be inspected or copied.

    Each public body shall make available to any person for inspection or copying all public records, except as otherwise provided in Sections Section 7 and 8.5 of this Act.

    The time periods for compliance or denial of a request to inspect or copy records set out in this Section shall not apply to requests for records made for a commercial purpose, requests by a recurrent requester, or voluminous requests.

    Such requests shall be subject to the provisions of Sections Section 3.1, 3.2, and 3.6 of this Act, as applicable.

    Sec. 3.6. Voluminous requests.

    (a) Notwithstanding any provision of this Act to the contrary, a public body shall respond to a voluminous request within 5 business days after receipt.

    The response shall notify the requester:
    (i) that the public body is treating the request as a voluminous request;

    (ii) the reasons why the public body is treating the request as a voluminous request;

    (iii) that the requester must respond to the public body within 10 business days after the public body’s response was sent and specify whether the requester would like to amend the request in such a way that the public body will no longer treat the request as a voluminous request;

    (iv) that if the requester does not respond within 10 business days or if the request continues to be a voluminous request following the requester’s response, the public body will respond to the request and assess any fees the public body charges pursuant to Section 6 of this Act;

    (v) that the public body has 5 business days after receipt of the requester’s response or 5 business days from the last day for the requester to amend his or her request, whichever is sooner, to respond to the request;

    (vi) that the public body may request an additional 10 business days to comply with the request;

    (vii) of the requester’s right to review of the public body’s determination by the Public Access Counselor and provide the address and phone number for the Public Access Counselor; And

    (viii) that if the requester fails to accept or collect the responsive records, the public body may still charge the requester for its response pursuant to Section 6 of this Act and the requester’s failure to pay will be considered a debt due and owing to the public body and may be collected in accordance with applicable law.

    (b) A public body shall provide a person making a voluminous request 10 business days from the date the public body’s response pursuant to subsection (a) of this Section is sent to amend the request in such a way that the public body will no longer treat the request as a voluminous request.

    (c) If a request continues to be a voluminous request following the requester’s response under subsection (b) of this Section or the requester fails to respond, the public body shall respond within the earlier of 5 business days after it receives the response from the requester or 5 business days after the final day for the requester to respond to the public body’s notification under this subsection.

    The response shall:

    (i) provide an estimate of the fees to be charged, which the public body may require the person to pay in full before copying the requested documents;

    (ii) deny the request pursuant to one or more of the exemptions set out in this Act;

    (iii) notify the requester that the request is unduly burdensome and extend an opportunity to the requester to attempt to reduce the request to manageable proportions; or

    (iv) provide the records requested.

    (d) The time for response by the public body under subsection (c) of this Section may be extended by the public body for not more than 10 business days from the final day for the requester to respond to the public body’s notification under subsection (c) of this Section for any of the reasons provided in subsection (e) of Section 3 of this Act.

    The person making a request and the public body may agree in writing to extend the time for compliance for a period to be determined by the parties.

    If the requester and the public body agree to extend the period for compliance, a failure by the
    public body to comply with any previous deadlines shall not be treated as a denial of the request for the records.

    (e) If a requester does not pay a fee charged pursuant to Section 6 of this Act for a voluminous request, the debt shall be considered a debt due and owing to the public body and may be collected in accordance with applicable law. This fee may be charged by the public body even if the requester fails to accept or collect records the public body has prepared in response to a voluminous request.

    If a request is not a request for a commercial purpose or a voluminous request, a public body may not charge the requester for the costs of any search for and review of the records or other personnel costs associated with reproducing the records.

    (a-5) If a voluminous request is for electronic records and those records are not in a portable document format (PDF), the public body may charge up to $20 for not more than 2 megabytes of data, up to $40 for more than 2 but not more than 4 megabytes of data, and up to $100 for more than 4 megabytes of data.

    If a voluminous request is for electronic records and those records are in a portable document format, the public body may charge up to $20 for not more than 80 megabytes of data, up to $40 for more than 80 megabytes but not more than 160 megabytes of data,and up to $100 for more than 160 megabytes of data.

    If the responsive electronic records are in both a portable document format and not in a portable document format, the public body may separate the fees and charge the requester under both fee scales.

    If a public body imposes a fee pursuant to this subsection (a-5), it must provide the requester with an accounting of all fees, costs, and personnel hours in connection with the request for public records.

    (f) A public body may charge up to $10 for each hour spent by personnel in searching for and retrieving a requested record or examining the record for necessary redactions.

    Sec. 8.5. Records maintained online.

    (a) Notwithstanding any provision of this Act to the contrary, a public body is not required to copy a public record that is published on the public body’s website.

    The public body shall notify the requester that the public record is available online and direct the requester to the website where the record can be reasonably accessed.

    (b) If the person requesting the public record is unable to reasonably access the record online after being directed to the website pursuant to subsection (a) of this Section, the requester may re-submit his or her request for the record stating his or her inability to reasonably access the record online, and the public body shall make the requested record available for inspection or copying as provided in Section 3 of this Act.

    (b-5) A person whose request to inspect or copy a public record was treated by a public body, except the General Assembly and committees, commissions, and agencies thereof, as a voluminous request under Section 3.6 of this Act may file a request for review with the Public Access Counselor for the purpose of reviewing whether the public body properly determined that the request was a voluminous request.

  8. The real problem is not enough government data is on the internet in the first place.

    So in addition to salaries, benefits, pensions, unfunded liabilities, bonds, etc., the bill asks taxpayers to cough up additional money in the form of data fees, search fees, retrieval fees, and redaction fees, if the taxpayer submits a FOIA and is labeled a voluminous requester.

    What about the voluminous salaries?
    Voluminous pensions?
    Voluminous benefits?
    Voluminous non-referendum bonds?
    Voluminous salary hikes?
    Voluminous pension benefit hikes?
    Voluminous retiree healthcare?
    Voluminous retiree healthcare hikes?

    If you want to tell your state rep and state senator to not override the Governor’s veto of this bill, you can point out these problems.

    If the requester is labeled voluminous and does not accept the requested document for whatever reason, the requester is charged anyways.

    Voluminous is not very voluminous.

    The amounts charged for various categories of voluminous requests is based whether or not the document is in pdf (Adobe) format or apparently some other format such as such Word, Excel, .csv, etc.

    For non pdf formats the file size of 2MB and 4MB is used.

    A 2MB or 4MB excel file for example is not a large file especially in the case of larger government bodies such as Chicago Public Schools.

    Less than 2MB: $20.
    2MB – 4MB: $40.
    Greater than 4MB: $100.

    The proposed charge for pdf (Adobe) electronic documents is as follows:

    Less than 80MB: $20.
    80MB – 160MB: $40.
    Greater than 160MB: $100.

    Charging the voluminous requester $10 per hour for research, retrieval, and redactions is wrong.

    Here is a key section of the proposed law extracted from the previous comment.

    (e) If a requester does not pay a fee charged pursuant to Section 6 of this Act for a voluminous request, the debt shall be considered a debt due and owing to the public body and may be collected in accordance with applicable law.

    This fee may be charged by the public body even if the requester fails to accept or collect records the public body has prepared in response to a voluminous request.

    If a request is not a request for a commercial purpose or a voluminous request, a public body may not charge the requester for the costs of any search for and review of the records or other personnel costs associated with reproducing the records.

    (a-5) If a voluminous request is for electronic records and those records are not in a portable document format (PDF), the public body may charge up to $20 for not more than 2 megabytes of data, up to $40 for more than 2 but not more than 4 megabytes of data, and up to $100 for more than 4 megabytes of data.

    If a voluminous request is for electronic records and those records are in a portable document format, the public body may charge up to $20 for not more than 80 megabytes of data, up to $40 for more than 80 megabytes but not more than 160 megabytes of data,and up to $100 for more than 160 megabytes of data.

    If the responsive electronic records are in both a portable document format and not in a portable document format, the public body may separate the fees and charge the requester under both fee scales.

    (f) A public body may charge up to $10 for each hour spent by personnel in searching for and retrieving a requested record or examining the record for necessary redactions.

  9. Bottom line: ALTHOFF MUST BE PRIMARIED IF SHE RUNS AGAIN!!

    Not just because of this issue but she no longer supports most of the Republican platform!

  10. Mark, the real problem is if you get too interested in what is going on, you become a problem….legislation is presented to eliminate problems… Transparency should not and is not hard…what is hard is trying to work around the strait forward presentation of the facts…so we need more legislation…see? It is not rocket surgery…

  11. John….we need to pass the agenda items to find out what they are….we have been down that road before…

  12. We really need people who comment on this blog to run for office. There are hundreds of positions available. Campaigns for School Board and other local offices are relatively inexpensive. Get your name on the ballot!!!

  13. The House and Senate over rode Governor Quinn’s veto of HB3796 in the 98th General Assembly.

    That’s the bill which allows government to charge private citizen FOIA requesters $10 per hour for FOIA research, and allows government to charge various amounts for electronic files of a certain size.

    The alleged reason was to reign in voluminous requesters.

    The real reason is to restrict and harass the Average Joe FOIA requester.

    There are far too many Illinois governments who already make it very difficult for Average Joe to obtain information via FOIA.

    This allows such taxing districts to add more FOIA Games to their arsenal.

    Here’s the history.
    5/27/2014 – Passed the House.
    5/30/2014 – Passed the Senate.
    6/27/2014 – Governor Vetoed.
    11/19/2014 – House Override of Governor veto.
    12/3/2014 – Senate override of Governor veto.

    Governor Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan both supported the veto of House Bill 3796.

    The Attorney General is our chief FOIA enforcer.

    Here’s the House Roll Call of the veto override.
    Jack Franks (D-63rd) – nay (voted against the override).
    Dave McSweeney (R-52nd) – nay.
    Mike Tryon (R-66th) – nay.
    Barbara Wheeler (R-64th) – nay.
    http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/votehistory/98/house/09800HB3796_11192014_004000M.pdf

    Here’s the Senate Roll Call of the veto override.
    Pam Althoff (R-32nd) – Yea (supported the ovveride of the veto).
    Dan Duffy (R-26th) – Nay.
    Karen McConnaughay (R-33rd) – Nay.
    http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/votehistory/98/senate/09800HB3796_12032014_010000M.pdf

    Here’s the history of HB 3796.
    http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3796&GAID=12&DocTypeID=HB&SessionID=85&GA=98

  14. So this bill makes it difficult if not impossible for some….to find out just what your representatives have done…to you…

    the tax payers no longer foot the bill for government transparency…one of the few things they might be willing to afford…now how bout that?

  15. Here is some more history about House Bill 3796 in the 98th General Assembly.

    As a reminder, the Illinois General Assembly has overridden Governor Pat Quinn’s veto of the bill.

    Pam Althoff (R-32nd), was a co-sponsor of the legislation, and is the only McHenry County state legislator to vote to override Governor Quinn’s veto of the bill.

    HB 3796, in certain circumstances, makes FOIA requests more expensive for citizens.

    Even worse, it’s the unknown that will hamper FOIA requests by citizens.

    Will the government charge me $10 per hour for my FOIA request?

    Will I incur a data charge for my FOIA request?

    How much might the data charge be for my FOIA request?

    Because the answer to both of those questions are unknown in many situations, there is no way to answer the questions.

    In addition to Pat Quinn and Lisa Madigan, who else was against HB 3796?

    Illinois Policy Institute
    5 reasons FOIA bill would crush government watchdogs in corrupt Illinois
    http://www.illinoispolicy.org/5-reasons-foia-bill-would-crush-government-watchdogs-in-corrupt-illinois/

    Citizens Advocacy Center
    FACT SHEET: HB 3796 “Voluminous Request” Bill
    6/10/2014
    HB 3796 “VOLUMINOUS REQUEST” FACT SHEET.
    UNNECESSARY & ANTI-DEMOCRATIC CHANGES TO ILLINOIS FOIA

    https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/231152171?access_key=key-aV13Eubtr8YH7EtS2OGV&allow_share=false&
    escape=false&show_recommendations=false&view_mode=scroll

    http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org/cac-blog/fact-sheethb-3796-voluminous-request-bill

    Read that and think about all stunts a FOIA officer could pull if the taxing district does not really want you to have the information you are requesting.

    Can you imagine how many games some of these PAID FOIA officer can play with the UNPAID citizen requester?

    And if you think some FOIA officers don’t play games, you either haven’t done enough FOIA’s or haven’t talked to enough people whom do FOIA’s.

    Thanks Althoff.

    Here’s some more from the Citizens Advocacy Center in Elmhurst.

    http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org/cac-blog/fact-sheethb-3796-voluminous-request-bill

    http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org/cac-blog/urgent-legislative-alert-call-your-representatives-in-springfield-to-oppose-passage-of-hb3796

    http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org/cac-blog/top-10-reasons-the-illinois-general-assembly-should-vote-no-on-hb-3796

    Chicago Headline Club – Protecting the Public’s Right to Know
    http://headlineclub.org/2014/05/30/gov-quinn-veto-hb-3796%E2%80%8F

    Reboot Illinois
    http://www.rebootillinois.com/2014/12/03/editors-picks/sstantis/scott-stantis-foia-cartoon/29942

    Illinois Public Interest Research Group
    Advocates to Illinois General Assembly: Don’t Override Governor’s Veto of Bad FOIA Bill
    http://www.illinoispirg.org/news/ilp/advocates-illinois-general-assembly-dont-override-governors-veto-bad-foia-bill

    Illinois Leaks / Edgar County Watchdogs
    Chapin Rose and Dale Righter Tell Citizens to Bend Over for HB-3796
    http://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/2014/05/chapin-rose-and-dale-righter-tell-citizens-to-bend-over-for-hb-3796

    Better Government Association
    BGA Backs Gov.’s FOIA Bill Veto At Press Conference
    http://www.bettergov.org/blogs/think_tank/bga_backs_govs_foia_bill_veto_at_press_conference/

    Better Government Association
    BGA Applauds Governor’s Veto of Bad FOIA Bill
    In addition to the BGA and Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, the other Illinois based groups that opposed HB 3796 include: Citizen Advocacy Center; Illinois Public Interest Research Group; Illinois Policy Institute; Chicago Headline Club; Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. Former Chicago Alderman and University of Illinois at Chicago political science professor Dick Simpson also opposed the bill.
    http://www.bettergov.org/assets/1/News/BGA_Applauds_Gov.pdf

    State Journal Register
    Our Opinion: Further weakening of Illinois’ sunshine laws unacceptable
    http://www.sj-r.com/article/20141129/Opinion/141129522

    This website provides some information about FOIA but is not that up to date or extensive.
    http://foiaillinois.org

    If the government is giving you the run-around about FOIA, which is not unusual, good resources are the Better Goverment Association, Citizens Advocacy Center, and the Attorney General’s office.

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